Deepertruth: Eucharistic Miracle Alcala, Spain, 1597

In 1597, a penitent bandit brought himself to confession at the Jesuit church of Alcalá. He was said to have been part of a band of Moorish gypsies who, after being dispersed from the nearby mountains, had sacked numerous churches and stole monstrances and other sacred objects in different countries, committing many sacrilegious acts. The penitent brought with him some consecrated Hosts that he delivered to the confessor with many tears.

The confessor, very moved, went immediately to his superior to inform him. Initially it was agreed to consume the Hosts during a Mass, but later, fearing that the Hosts could be poisoned as had recently been done to some priests in Murcia and Segovia, it was decided to keep the Hosts in a box made of silver and to allow them to decompose naturally. Eleven years later the twenty-four Hosts were found still intact.

The mystic Father Luis de la Palma, in his capacity as Provincial, ordered that the Hosts be placed in a wine cellar along with some unconsecrated hosts. A few months later, the unconsecrated hosts had decomposed from the humidity, while the consecrated Hosts remained intact. Six years later Father Palma decided to make public the miracle of the Hosts that were still intact.

New academic and medical tests from the doctor of His Majesty, Garcia Carrera, as well as numerous illustrious theologians, all of whom identified this as a true miracle. In 1619 ecclesiastical authorities officially authorized the veracity of the Miracle. The Holy Hosts were publicly adored before King Phillip III, who in 1620 presided over a solemn procession in which the whole royal family participated.